Former Co-op Bank boss ordered to pay £184,000 or face more jail

Disgraced former Co-operative Bank chairman Paul Flowers has been ordered by a judge to pay back £184,000 he stole from an elderly spinster.

Flowers, 75, had betrayed his friend of many years, Margaret Jarvis, plundering her cash to spend on drugs, holidays and gifts for himself.

Flowers, a former Labour councillor in Rochdale and Bradford and a church minister, dubbed the “Crystal Methodist” after a newspaper drugs sting, had been made power of attorney and executor of the will of Miss Jarvis, a teetotal retired teacher, who never married and had no children.

He pleaded guilty to multiple counts of fraud in July 2024 at Manchester Crown Court and was jailed for three years.

He will have two and a half years added to that prison sentence if he does not pay the full amount ordered on Wednesday within the next three months after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) secured a confiscation order from a judge for £184,862.

Charles Clayton, specialist prosecutor, CPS Proceeds of Crime Division, said: “Paul Flowers abused the trust his friend placed in him, preying on her vulnerability.

“He stole a large amount of money from her, depriving charities and her niece of gifts that were bequeathed to them. We are pleased to have secured a compensation order that will right that wrong.

“Flowers took advantage of Margaret Jarvis’s illness; he knew she wouldn’t realise he was stealing and even continued to steal from her after her death.

“Today CPS Proceeds of Crime Division ensured that Flowers cannot continue to benefit from his ill-gotten gains and his victim’s final wishes for her estate will finally be fulfilled.”

Miss Jarvis was an old friend of Flowers, but after she developed progressive dementia and she could no longer look after her own money, Flowers began controlling her accounts and using her cash.

And he continued taking her money after her death, aged 82, in 2016 in a care home near Amersham, Buckinghamshire.

An analysis of transactions by Flowers showed he had used Miss Jarvis’s money to buy theatre tickets, fine wines, cruise holidays, stays at the Park Hotel in Knightsbridge and tickets for the West End show Jersey Boys.

Flowers was dubbed the “Crystal Methodist” after the Mail on Sunday published secretly filmed footage of the then-church minister handing over £300 in cash for crystal meth and other drugs in Leeds in November 2013.

He pleaded guilty at Leeds Magistrates’ Court to possessing cocaine, crystal meth and ketamine, and was fined £400.